As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve enjoyed a bit of a hot streak of late. As suddenly as they disappeared near the beginning of the pandemic, cards returned to my local Goodwill in November and have re-stocked fairly regularly in the weeks since. In turn, I’ve gladly handed them my money, eight to ten bucks at a time. Its amazing how much finding a ton of cards for relatively little money can do for the collecting soul after a year-plus of being shut out looking for blasters at the grocery store, but I’m feeling pretty great about the stuff I was able to find for less than $80 over two months.
But enough preamble – let’s roll that beautiful thrift shop footage!
First up, non-cardboard! What you see here is a team-signed 1981 Portland Beavers baseball, featuring Vance Law, Junior Ortiz, and the reason I purchased the ball for a whole $3.00, Luis Tiant, who pitched 21 games for Portland as a 40-year-old that season. Despite being left out of the real Hall of Fame for the time being, he’s good enough to join my collection’s hall of fame ball shelf.
Next up was a binder of hockey cards that I picked up for $7. Most of these were from the mid-90s, with partial 1996-97 Donruss Elite and Flair sets, a bunch of 1996-97 Ultra Gold Medallion parallels, and several sections of individual players (such as Jarome Iginla, one of my favorites from the late 90s through the aughts). But the real showstopper was three pages full of Be A Player autographs, including totally cromulent players such as Paul Kariya, Rod Brind’Amour, and Olaf Kolzig. This was a great discovery, but one that pales to my more recent hockey pickup, which I’ll write about sometime in the future.
Something I’d seen in photos from other Goodwills, but never before at mine, were plastic bags full of cards. As someone who values condition in most of what I keep, this makes me bristle every time I see it. However, certain things will make me take the leap and gamble on a bag if I see one. For instance, newish baseball cards. This bag cost $5 looked to be mostly baseball from 2015-2018. Most of the cards were damaged, but among the keepers was a Paper Jacob deGrom Bowman 1st, and several great Archives inserts (including the great Cobb/Mays/Griffey/Trout, with a double!) plus some 90s Diamond Kings and Fleer inserts.
Next up was a binder I picked up for $8 -this was mostly full of the ho-hum stuff that you’d expect would be donated to a thrift shop, with one giant exception – a Clayton Kershaw Topps Update rookie. It’s got a small corner ding, but obviously a very worthy addition to the collection.
While newer baseball may justify a bag purchase, you know what really justifies it? 1986-87 Fleer basketball!
Red, white and blue spotted! 
#57 missing from this collection too. 
Today’s football needs more single bar facemasks and glasses.
This bag ran me less than $5 (I forgot to take a pic of the tag) and also included a ton of very well-loved 1979-80 Topps Basketball and early 80s Topps football. The Fleer was what initially caught my eye, but alas those red white and blue borders did not help me with my sputtering set build. At least the person who had these was missing the Jordan too.
While it didn’t help me much with the inaugural Fleer set, this bag, (along with a box I picked up later in the month) did push the Topps basketball set from my birth season to about 70% complete, albeit with some very rough cards – something I actually don’t mind with cards I consider “vintage.” Rough condition is also acceptable when it allows me to add a quarterback with a single bar facemask or prison/military glasses to my collection.
In the same shopping trip, I picked up a bag of basketball cards (with a few baseball) from 2019-20 and 2020-21. The 20-21 cards blew me away, since I wasn’t ever able to locate basketball cards on retail shelves that year. This $3.99 bag yielded rookies of James Wiseman, RJ Barrett, and fellow Duck Payton Prichard, along with several other nice parallels and inserts – at least nice for the price tag.
Next up was another baseball – this one a $2.00 pickup featuring another Hall of Very Good honoree I’m happy to add to my collection – Dodgers legend Maury Wills. I’ve actually done quite well with baseballs from thrift shops over the years, though there is still lingering doubt over some of the bigger names I’ve found. Someday I’ll get the courage to send the $2 Derek Jeter and Hank Aaron balls to PSA to have them verified or exposed as fakes.
Next up was a 3,200-count box for $10. What caught my eye here was early 80s football, most of which I correctly assumed would be commons. What I didn’t expect to find was a section of 1990s Leaf Signature cards – a near repeat of the hockey find from a month prior, but with my #1 sport and featuring a healthy selection of Guys to Remember such as Andy Ashby, Steve Howe, Shawon Dunston, Jerome Walton, and Arthur Rhodes and many more.
The year ended with one final purchase – a binder full of mostly rough 1991 Fleer baseball, with a few page oasis near the center which featured a Prizm Bryce Harper rookie in fantastic shape, a Derek Jeter Prizm, and several pages of mid 2000s football in passable shape.
All in all, I spent $73 at Goodwill in November and December. The mathletes reading this will be able to determine there are some items that were not written up – not everything can be gold, and some things just aren’t that noteworthy (ok, I did get a signed Joey Harrington Sports Illustrated that’s now living in a frame on my wall). But that $73 got me far more enjoyment than the 3 Topps Update blasters it could have bought – and after all, I want enjoyment from my hobbies – especially If I end up with another Bryce or Kershaw rookie along the way.
